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The, Greenest: Poem--Ever.

Walt Whitman delivers the goods in "With Animals"

Mickey Z.

By Mickey Z.
Astoria, NY, USA | Sun Nov 1, 2009 10:00 AM ET

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Animals | Books | Green Community

Poetry has been around, well...forever. But the green movement? Maybe since Silent Spring? The first Earth Day? The point is that there hasn't been enough time to develop a large body of eco-poems. So, until this genre develops, we have to delve into the past to find the greenest verses ever written. My nominee is "With Animals," by Walt Whitman:

I think I could turn and live with animals
they are so placid and self-contained,
I stand and look at them long and long,
They do not sweat and whine about their condition;
They do not lie awake in the dark and weep for their sins;
They do not make me sick discussing their duty to God.
Not one is dissatisfied--not one is demented with the mania of owning
things. Not one kneels to another, nor to his kind
that lived thousands of years ago;
Not one is respectable or industrious over the whole earth.

What eco-poems have moved you?

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